London – The BBC has announced the appointment of James Stephenson as Head of News for BBC World News, the BBC’s commercially funded international news channel. Stephenson is currently Editor of the BBC News at Six and BBC News at Ten in the UK. He is also Deputy Head of the BBC Newsroom and will continue in that role.

Stephenson will lead the next phase of the channel’s news development, driving the coverage of breaking and developing stories as well as big events and global themes. He will also take a leading role in improving how to deliver the best BBC news video in a multiplatform way, to BBC.com as well as on BBC World News. Stephenson will take up the role shortly. His predecessor, Andrew Roy was recently appointed to run the BBC’s international Newsgathering operations in the role of World Editor, BBC News. 

Mary Hockaday, Head of the BBC Newsroom said, “James will bring excellent editorial leadership to BBC World News, an absolute commitment to the highest quality and most trustworthy journalism as well as an ambitious approach to television production and sharing our journalism across platforms for audiences in a digital age. James has a very strong track record leading high profile output and newsgathering teams in BBC News, as Editor of the BBC News at Six and BBC News at Ten, the Middle East Bureau and political programmes at Westminster. He has all the right qualities to develop our international journalism working with our production teams and journalists in London and around the world.”